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election.

The average German is no leader of men, no lover of an emergency, no
social or political colonist, and he would shrink from the initiative
and daring and endurance demanded by a real political revolution and a
real change of authority, as a hen from water. The very quality in his
ruler that we take for granted he must dislike is the quality that at
the bottom of his heart he adores, and he reposes upon it as the very
foundation of his sense of security, and as the very bulwark behind
which he makes grimaces and shakes his fist at his enemies. Such men
as the present chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, a very calm spectator
of his country's doings, and the Emperor himself, both know this.

As he looks at history and at life, it follows that he must be
interested in everything that concerns his people, and not
infrequently take a hand in settling questions, or in pushing
enterprises, that seem too widely apart to be dealt with by one man,
and too far afield for his constitutional obligations to profit by his
interference. Certainly German progress shows that the Germans can
have no ground to quote: "Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi,"
of their Emperor.

In the discussion of this question, I may remind my American readers,
although the German constitution is dealt with elsewhere, that there
is one difference between Germany and America politically, that must
never be left out of our calculations. Such constitution and such
rights as the German citizens have, were granted them by their rulers.
The people of Prussia, or of Bavaria, or of Wuertemberg, have not given
certain powers to, and placed certain limitations upon, their rulers;
on the contrary, their rulers have given the people certain of their
own prerogatives and political privileges, and granted to the people
as a favor, a certain share in government and certain powers, that
only so long as seventy years ago belonged to the sovereign alone. It
is not what the people have won and then shared with the ruler, but it
is what the ruler has inherited or won and shared with the people,
that makes the groundwork of the constitutions of the various states,
and of the empire of Germany. Nothing has been taken away from the
people of Prussia or from any other state in Germany that they once
had; but certain rights and privileges have been granted by the rulers
that were once wholly theirs. Bear this in mind, that it is William II
and his ancestors wh